Tweeted from astronaut Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) on October 21, 2014 “Our Little #Dragon watches over a nice #sunrise from #ISS CLICK TO ZOOM

The Charlie Brown payload of 15 Mission 5 to ISS experiments launched on July 13, 2014, aboard the Orb-2 vehicle, with liftoff at 12:52 pm ET, from pad 0-A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), Wallops Island, VA. Berthing at ISS took place at 6:39 am ET, July 16, 2014.

Regarding SSEP on-orbit operations, 4 experiments were initiated on July 17; 7 experiments were initiated on October 8; and 3 experiments were initiated on October 16. One experiment only required termination, and that occurred on October 8. All on-orbit activities were reported out to the SSEP student flight teams via the SSEP Mission 5 to ISS: Experiment Log page , allowing them to conduct their concurrent ground experiments. The crew aboard ISS would report interactions with the SSEP payload to ground controllers at Marshall Space Flight Center. Marshall would then pass that information on to Johnson Space Center in Houston, in turn to NanoRacks, and finally to NCESSE. NCESSE would then post interactions on the Mission 5 Log page for the flight teams.

At 9:56 am ET, Saturday, October 25, 2014, NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Reid Wiseman will release the SpaceX-4 Dragon vehicle from the ISS Harmony module. Aboard Dragon will be the 15 experiments comprising the SSEP Mission 5 Charlie Brown payload. Barry, and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, were operating the M5 experiments on Station. Dragon’s de-orbit burn will take place at 2:43 pm ET, with splashdown in the Pacific around 3:39 pm ET.

NASA TV will provide live coverage of Dragon’s release starting at 9:30 am ET. NASA TV will not have live coverage of splashdown. Below is the October 20 NASA Press Release detailing on-orbit activities and TV coverage. If you wish you can watch live right here at the SSEP website.

A Teachable Math Moment:Charlie Brown will have been on Station for 14 weeks 5 days. Since Station orbits the Earth in roughly 90 minutes, moving at 4.7 miles per second (7.6 km/sec) relative to Earth’s surface, Charlie Brown will have been on Station for approximately 1,650 orbits. Each orbit represents 25,000 miles around the Earth. These Mission 5 experiments will have therefore logged 41.2 million miles in space – nearly half the distance from Earth to the Sun. A thought – when these mini-labs are returned to the flight teams, after harvesting, they should be preserved and displayed proudly by the communities, as a symbol of their participation in the Space Program.

NASA Press Release: October 20, 2014 NASA TV Coverage Set for U.S. Cargo Ship’s Departure from International Space Station

NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Reid Wiseman, crew members of International Space Station Expedition 41, will operate the robotic arm to release the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the station’s Harmony module at 9:56 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 25.

NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Reid Wiseman, crew members of International Space Station Expedition 41, will operate the robotic arm to release the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the station’s Harmony module at 9:56 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 25.

After delivering almost 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station during a month-long stay, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is set to leave the orbital laboratory on Saturday, Oct. 25.

The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to detach from the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module and unberth through commands sent by robotic ground controllers in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston operating the Canadarm 2 robotic arm. Mission control will maneuver Dragon into place then turn it over to Expedition 41 robotic arm operators Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore of NASA for release, which is scheduled for 9:56 a.m. EDT.

NASA Television will provide live coverage of Dragon’s departure beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Space station and SpaceX officials delayed Dragon’s departure four days from the originally scheduled date of Oct. 21 because of high sea states in the splashdown and recovery zone west of Baja California.

Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return to Earth intact. It will return about 3,276 pounds of cargo, including science samples from human research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities sponsored by NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, the nonprofit organization responsible for managing research aboard the U.S. national laboratory portion of the space station.

Dragon will execute three thruster firings to move away from the station to a safe distance for its deorbit burn at 2:43 p.m. The capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean around 3:39 p.m. Neither the deorbit burn nor the splashdown will broadcast on NASA TV.

Dragon launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Sept. 21 on the company’s fourth commercial resupply mission to the station. It arrived at the station Sept. 23.